• Westpac Bank has announced the official ban of Binace from the Australian Payment Service.
• Westpac Bank teamed with the National Australia Bank to launch the Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum Network.
• In 2015, Westpac Bank played a crucial role in Coinbase’s success today.

From the FTX crash to SEC cracking down on the exchanges, the crypto market of 2023 is relatively grim. Since the crash, numerous legal and social issues have bombarded the market. Binance exchange, the world’s largest exchange, sought to save the crypto market by liquidating $1 billion worth of crypto within the market. In addition, it has offered aid to numerous exchanges while still pioneering crypto education in Africa. Unfortunately, this self-proclaimed saviour has turned target as numerous legal issues have cropped up over the past few months. In recent news, Westpac Bank, an Australian Big Four bank, has banned all association with Binance. This has set back its crypto adoption rate by a landslide.

This is among the few incidents the largest crypto exchange has faced in six months. Do these chains of events finally spell doom for Binance? Will it stubbornly survive the crypto winter and the legal issues, or will it succeed like peer FTX?

Westpac Bank once advocated for crypto. 

Before the turmoil and chaos within the crypto market, Westpac Bank once highly thought of cryptocurrency. Like every other bank globally, the high crypto adoption rate threatened traditional banking systems. This led o a significantly high rise in the fintech industry in multiple nations.

Soon tech companies barely a decade old posed a substantial threat to the banking system that was centuries old. This printed a drastic change of pace, and numerous banks such as Standard Chartered, Barclays, United Bank of Africa and many more shifted to embracing digital currencies.

Also, Read Australia starts the year on a high note in the crypto market.

Thus Westpac Bank, an Australian big four bank, had no option but to embrace its crypto adoption rate or phase possible bankruptcy. Fortunately, the Australian big four banks dived into the crypto market with little to no hesitation.

Furthermore, it teamed with the National Australia Bank to launch the Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum Network. This collaboration sent ripples throughout the region, defining a significant moment in the crypto market. The region’s crypto adoption rate rose substantially with three Australian big four banks.

In 2015, Westpac Bank played a crucial role in Coinbase’s success today. At the time, generally, everyone thought cryptocurrency was a scam. However, as an Australian big four bank, they saw it differently. The organization received an undisclosed amount from Coinbase setting its trajectory early.

Remember, by the time they made this deal, the Australian government had not legalized Bitcoin. This goes to show how much foresight the bank had. Today Coinbase is the second largest crypto exchange in the world, all thanks to the support of several investors, including Westpac Bank.

Westpac bank bans Binance exchnage

With the FTX crash, the reputation of the crypto industry plummeted. No one expected that a renowned crypto exchange would pull off the biggest scam in the crypto market. It shed a horrendous light upon its peers. Binance exchange has passed the worst, having legal and social issues despite stretching an arm of relief to the crypto market.

Also, Read South Africa dethrones Kenya in cryptocurrency ownership.

Westpac Bank has announced the official ban of Binace from the Australian Payment Service. According to an Australian big four bank spokesman, “AUD deposits by bank transfers are no longer available to Binance users in Australia due to a decision made by our third-party service provider. The suspension of this service is with immediate effect.”

Fortunately, customers can still withdraw their remaining funds without hindrance, but transactions are entirely off-limits. According to Westpac, this plan will aid the crypto scams that have gone unidentified, and it will continue to crack down on any potential threats.

This is a shock to the Binance exchange after revealing that their payment provider, Cuscal was on the case. They claimed, “Cuscal has strict due diligence, onboarding and compliance requirements for our clients and any of their customers and merchants. Where these requirements are not met, Cuscal will not onboard the client or allow them to onboard or facilitate payments associated with their customers and merchants.”

Unfortunately, the tragedy does not end there since Binance is among many banned crypto exchanges. Despite its effects on its crypto adoption rate, the Australian big four banks have deployed a new range of scam-prevention methods.

They further claimed they were, but the first and other central banks will soon follow. Scott Collary, Westpac’s group executive, said, “Digital exchanges have a legitimate role to play in the financial ecosystem. But since the rise of digital currency, we’ve noticed that scammers increasingly use overseas exchanges.”

Also, Read The state of cryptocurrency adoption in Africa per country.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, this will set a chain of reactions from other banking systems. The FTX crash dealt more damage than anyone would anticipate. With Binance exchange running away from the US, being rejected by the UK, and being banned in Australia, it’s losing significant capital.

Many claims that after the crash of the crypto market, centralized banking is taking a stand to reduce the crypto adoption rate. This hearsay might be questionable, but it might be closer to the truth, given recent activities than we think.